76 Dreams poems

at night you stumble, dreaming cross-eyed of a chase scene three yellow wasps on your chest the city you turned around in a chase that quickly lands into a fight the nagging anxiety of a stain somewhere a tickle at the back of the throat a song’s bridge playing over and over in the head maybe the stain is at the bottom of your lung maybe this white crusting along the edge of the bed I lay an icepack on your head one of the old ones that look like a lazy waterdrop unable to pop, I’m waiting for a more complete courage, a peeled orange, a halogen lamp believe it or not, we’re recreating someone from the 19 th century’s sin, by proceeding mounted on the edge of our bed like a permanent display, matching burdens to caramels the thin plant over the dresser is belonging here you picture yourself with pedals removed and ask why you were not born gracious I do a different dance in the same mirror in the ultra-rendering of these buildings I could snap my fingers and every window would close an accordion we accompany

Over the edge of the purple down, Where the single lamplight gleams, Know ye the road to the Merciful Town That is hard by the Sea of Dreams – Where the poor may lay their wrongs away, And the sick may forget to weep? But we – pity us! Oh, pity us! We wakeful; ah, pity us! – We must go back with Policeman Day – Back from the City of Sleep! Weary they turn from the scroll and crown, Fetter and prayer and plough – They that go up to the Merciful Town, For her gates are closing now. It is their right in the Baths of Night Body and soul to steep, But we – pity us! ah, pity us! We wakeful; oh, pity us! – We must go back with Policeman Day – Back from the City of Sleep! Over the edge of the purple down, Ere the tender dreams begin, Look – we may look – at the Merciful Town, But we may not enter in! Outcasts all, from her guarded wall Back to our watch we creep: We – pity us! ah, pity us! We wakeful; ah, pity us! – We that go back with Policeman Day – Back from the City of Sleep!

But this is ambiguous and so I will clarify. Last night I dreamt of a lake on fire. A lovely woman tapered off into a fish. I wore an owl mask with the desire to avoid use of his sacred name, and then I came to those minced pronunciations, like gad and gar and ged and gog and goles and golly and gom and gosh jolly and gud and gum and adad and adod and bedad and begad and ecod and egad and gadzooks and garzoon. Because gar is only used by playwrights who put it chiefly in the mouths of foreigners. You said, Oh god, my god, good god, followed by a good wish, to that god of my ever-closing gaps, for I receive god only ghostly, that goodly god that guides the globe, that god of love, that god of war, that god that blesses the god-blessed and the god-forsaken and the god-damned. My god, my shame is on me, I said to the painterly painter, My god, my shame's inside me and must go forth my body, this beastbody, this dogsbody, this stony and bony bodykins that my god has plunged my soul into. Last night I hung from the vine, from the branch, from the noose, until the sun stopped and the moon stood still, until my nation took vengeance upon my enemies. Last night a piece of cake tumbled into our city and struck our walls until they fell. Then it rolled around and around until the entire city turned upside down. Meanwhile back at the lake, I lapped silver water until dirt came out of my wounds, until dirt came out of my mouth. Then I killed my lover, Montgomery, in a new scatological satire. Last night nature ran hastily into its din, enthusiastically into its prison, wallowing in the flood of its patterning and randomness. Bedlam elected himself umpire and stood quickly in the midst of it, arranging and disarranging the very laws of nature. The earth vessel itself he plunged into the green and uneven horizon, and all at once, we entered a whole new world. In the beginning, the heavens and earth rose. In the beginning, we gave birth to the tiniest of errors. In the beginning, we watch for the rest of eternity as it blossoms and it blooms.

I put my hand Into the dream That falls upon The air. It Touches me a little, But I don’t complain. I’m almost asleep When I get there. Where Byron Lost the scent of his Life, over there, Where the dreams are. It’s always Hot, like The eyes of the Dream. Sometimes The dream is On the dunes Watching the molten Ocean burn the sun. The dream scours the Sand in your fish Tank for the plastic Mermaid who is gaining weight. Nevertheless, We go to the edge To watch the dream And the repetition being Hurled ashore like A drop of blue, You wrote in a poem, In a language You alone Understand In the dream.

After Robert Hayden’s “Bone-Flower Elegy” In the dream I enter him I      the eater of numbers the black-lipped barcode of cost have come for him because he owes me. He owes me the broken machine the bone structure gone limp over leg of time. I      irreverent as safe sex breathlessly whispering this is not a threat but a promise

Begins in interruption: an ambulance bell at the center of sleep, the room tilts sideways, furniture slides, an octet of amber blue verres à liqueur, one with a cut at the lip, clatters as a quaalude light in tatters mattes the curtains ormolu: I miss you is what I want to say like a rocket stocked from the Reagan years, its radar gone haywire, wiring fried but live inside a bunker of some private Soviet Union you & I —

I painted a phoenix in bright colors cut it in nine pieces and cooked it in a pot at the mountaintop. I stirred it as if cranking reels of a movie. Unraveled were a series of faces in mosaic. Kurosawa appeared. He asked me what my story was about. Tongue-tied, I could not answer. He handed me a token with a silvery eagle engraved, ready to fly. How real I thought everything was in my dream! In my waking hour, I see the remnant of the war between my head and heart. Now in cease-fire, my chest is filled with the fresh breeze of serenity. I begin to breathe gently as my story is unraveled like in a movie. No longer haunted, my love of God soars as I see my guardian angel smile in the clear blue sky, transforming to one gigantic phoenix. My wandering in the wilderness of the mind has taught me a little wisdom. I believe my dreams are real as my life is a dream.

The alcove of your arm has become my favorite room for sleep, but I’ve been roused by nightmares lately.Even thunderstorms couldn’t wake you

At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe, I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides I sailed all night—till at last, with my black beard, My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole. There in the childish night my companions lay frozen, The stiff furs knocked at my starveling throat, And I gave my great sigh: the flakes came huddling, Were they really my end? In the darkness I turned to my rest. —Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence Of the unbroken ice. I stand here, The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare At the North Pole . . . And now what? Why, go back. Turn as I please, my step is to the south. The world—my world spins on this final point Of cold and wretchedness: all lines, all winds End in this whirlpool I at last discover. And it is meaningless. In the child's bed After the night's voyage, in that warm world Where people work and suffer for the end That crowns the pain—in that Cloud-Cuckoo-Land I reached my North and it had meaning. Here at the actual pole of my existence, Where all that I have done is meaningless, Where I die or live by accident alone— Where, living or dying, I am still alone; Here where North, the night, the berg of death Crowd me out of the ignorant darkness, I see at last that all the knowledge I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me— Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing, The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness And we call it wisdom. It is pain.

When i finally sleep deeply i don't go anywhere no dreams just dark and warm i wake up slower which is how i know it worked